Twenties pros

One of the things that my mom said lately that I appreciate more and more is the when she told me to maximize my twenties. This is the time when we are most productive and most able to accommodate whatever life throws at us. Ideally on our twenties, we have a job that can sustain us and our needs. But not only this, it is in our twenties when career growth steeply rises. We’re almost always willing to go the extra mile – work the extra hour, take the extra shift, sacrifice the extra weekend, give the extra ‘yes’ in the hope that this will all lead to faster career advancement. Why do we take that extra in? Well, because we can. We do not have a wife or some kids waiting for us at home. We only have ourselves to worry about.

Even with our social life. Gone are the days when we need to ask for allowance when we go on gimmicks or worry about the time we go home because of the curfew time we are trying to beat. Now, we can basically go wherever we want; especially on pay-day-Friday. Gone are the times when we need to save for months and months for that new acquisition. Now, there’s always the credit card or bank loan. We feel good because we are earning and for most, we are now able to help out our families with the unintended consequence that we now have a solid vote on family matters.

Even with our relationships. We do not need to sneak the call in or secretly meet up to avoid the prying questions of our parents. Questions that we really do not want to face because we were not ready to answer them yet. Relationships are not ‘illegal’ anymore. We are as open about our relationships as 711.

Let’s add confidence and opportunity in the mix. At twenties we basically have an idea of who we are and what we want in life. We’re aggressive about our priorities and we strive to make it happen. Why are we aggressive? Well, because we know we have the skills to turn our plans into a reality, we just need the perfect opportunity. And if we don’t have that perfect opportunity, we create it for ourselves. We easily resign and hop jobs looking for that next big thing that will pave the way for everything good and desirable.

Oh and did I mention the health factor? We are able to do everything that I mentioned above because we have a body as strong and healthy as horses. Overtime? No problem. Call center shift? No Problem. Gimmick after office then go home at 2 am on a work week? No problem. Our bodies at this point are assets instead of liabilities.

BUT… well.. not Buts for now. I just like to savor the good things first… (Plus I have to continue my work because my boss is at my neck right now so I cannot enumerate the ‘but’ part. Haha)

Birthday post for 2007

It was probably one of the weirdest birthdays I’ve had. Weird because I was not exactly totally happy but at the same time, I am also not excruciatingly sad. How do I describe it…. I was in a state of contemplation. Of checking my reality. Of evaluation.

At the risk of being commercial, I thought I was undergoing what the modern internet junkie calls a quarter-life crisis…. What does this mean? Well, here’s the article >> http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~shane/text/quarterlifecrisis.html (this will open in a new browser)

And this thing is not the stuff spams are made of. There are actually mental health studies on this. Just something I picked up >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis

Actually, after reviewing and going through these links and the rest of the materials I found online, I realized I was way too far from having what they call a ‘crisis’ and being that person described in the article. It’s actually just more of an ‘assessment.’ Almost everything in the article does not apply to what I AM going through. Just one slightly related item (I think). I can’t coherently write about it now without offending or touching people’s nerves so I’ll probably just keep it to myself for a while. I will write about it though once I have established some objectivity.

Suffice it to say that this was a different birthday. Somehow enlightening. Somehow revealing….

Time to vent

How deep does the rabbit hole go? Heard this before, right? If not, then you need to get in the zone. Quite frankly, I don’t fully know the answer to this. I’m still just discovering its depth…. OK, this is probably weird writing from me for all those that are used to my familiar writing style.

Back to my old self… Let me use another movie line – with great power comes great responsibility. Yep, Spiderman. No, I am not your sticky spider who wears tight costumes at night. And no, I don’t necessarily have great powers. But I do have some authority at work and lately I have been feeling the ‘great responsibility’ part. For the past month, and this has been the reason why I haven’t been able to blog, the team that I belong to have been screwing up. And by screw up, I do not mean tiny, insignifant mistakes but major, horrific ones. So in effect, I have been under a lot of pressure lately. Pressure to correct the issues; pressure to explain; pressure to come up with process improvements to ensure the mistake does not happen; even just the simple pressure of knowing that all eyes are on my team to see if we’ll screw up again or not. Naturally, it is my f*****g face that gets to take all the s**t that comes out from my Boss’ mouth. (Warning: I am not angry. I’m just stating things candidly). The result? Two letters – OT.

Actually, I am not easily fazed by sharp words and harsh email communication. To anyone who has seen me work, I am usually calm and composed. Maybe it’s my cheerful demeanor that still allows me to find that cool and not panic. But of course this does not mean that I don’t feel the pain of the team’s screw up. That is the reason why I’m working doubly hard to ensure that my team is up and running smoothly again. Changes must be implemented.

Of course the implementation is another story since in this aspect I would need to deal with people. And don’t get me started on this because this entry would be very long. Bottom line, my current role is fun and challenging. Hehe. Whoever said that leading a team is easier than programming complex code does not know what he is saying. I say try it out and you’ll know the difference.